Thursday, August 9, 2012

Cannonball day 6, New Orleans to Ft Lauderdale and airplanes on a stick…




Today is our last day on the road... The end of our cannonball run...  It's going to be a long day, 840 miles or so...

We left the hotel about 7:10.  Our car was held prisoner in the parking garage the valet having not shown up.  A valet from a nearby hotel was summoned and Clifford (the car has a name... I don't think we have addressed that before) retrieved.  We looped around to Canal, then up Canal, passing the cemeteries and onto I-10 East.  Through the Seventh ward, and along the edge of the Ninth Ward, still evidence of Katrina but less with each visit.

We reach Mississippi about 8:00 am...

Eventually, somewhere in Mississippi, we fall into a rhythm, drive right pass left, only occasionally ruined by a truck passing a truck...

We cross into Alabama about 8:45

Now 8:59 got gas somewhere west of mobile, AL.  It's been raining, traffic is too thick for a good hard run.  There is a lot of freeway traffic happening in Alabama.  The slow cars are all scared of the trucks so they're hiding in the fast lane, blocking our progress.

Past Mobile, the Battleship Alabama can be seen to the south...  On a pylon sits a F-4, the forth F-4 of the trip (the others being found in Boron, CA and Gila Bend Arizona on the first day... There was a second un identified jet war bird in Gila Bend as well, and another F-4 in front of a VFW post near Morgan City, LA a couple of days ago, that one a Navy example, painter for Coral Sea)

We cross into Florida at 10:00, only to find a Navy A-4 in Blue Angels livery...   On a pylon in the parking lot of the "Florida Welcome Center"...  Jet aircraft are fast becoming a trip theme.

 In Pensacola, we leave I-10 in search of the Museum of Naval Aviation... It is on the Naval Air Station... You have show ID at the gate... But the museum is free...  It is a very good museum, with an F-14 Tomcat on a pylon out front... (we are not particularly surprised to see a jet fighter at an aviation museum, but it adds to the count, and therefore is noted...)  There is a second F-14 inside, along with a huge comprehensive collection of Navy aircraft... Models of aircraft carriers (they don't fit inside buildings) very well laid out children's areas, and of course a gift shop...  a really nice gift shop...  They offer hourly bus tours of the flight line, but we were pressed for time, so we pressed on... One of the most impressive displays was 4 blue angel A4s hanging from the ceiling in formation, after all Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels...  Four of the same aircraft, displayed in a way that said more than one could say...

Back to I-10 for our hard run...

A bit beyond Pensacola there is another Blue Angeles A-4 on a different pylon in a rest stop... There is clearly no shortage of old jet fighters here

As we leave Pensacola, it starts to rain... After the second A-4 on a stick it starts to rain heavier, not just cats and dogs, but cats, dogs, hippopotamus and possibly a beluga whale.  At times we turned on the flashers and dropped the speed below 50.  It was really nasty.  This of course extended out travel time, it looks like we will arrive late, after 8pm.  At  1:20, pass into the eastern time zone , somewhere east of Tallahassee... Eventually the rain lets up but never stops.  We stop for gas in Tallahassee and change drivers.

As we enter Suwannee County the skies start to darken again and Steph pulls over in a rest stop to change drivers, Steph doesn't like driving in nasty rain.  We're about 30 miles from I-75 where we hook south along the Florida peninsula.

Off to the side of I-75 we spot another navy plane on a pylon (in this case three posts) in Cannon Creek ? still another airplane on a stick.  Maybe another A-4 but I'm not that good at identifying fighter planes, I'll leave that for my brother-in-law, Sig.

Below Gainesville, somewhere north of Orlando, we leave I-75 for the Florida turnpike... The Ronald Reagan  turnpike, formerly the Sunshine State Turnpike... A toll road which will take us the rest of way to Ft Lauderdale... Gina, being a Florida resident has a "Sun Pass", the local electronic toll payment system...

Somewhere south of Orlando, we stop for gas, and Gina takes the wheel for the last leg...  It is now almost 7:00, and we have about 170 miles, maybe 2 1/2 hours to go.

The road may have once been named the Sunshine State turnpike, but there is currently no sunshine... It's raining... Hard... We are again driving with our flashers on...

Fifteen minutes later, it has stopped raining...  We are once again making good time... I am in the back seat, writing this post, also writing yesterday's post... Yesterday we were all too busy having fun to bother with the blog.

Now 8:00, less than an hour out... We will pause in West Palm Beach to pick up Brian, a friend of Gina's, to drive her home after she drops Steph at our airport hotel... At the hotel, we will meet "other" Brian, my son, Steph's brother. it will be a short reunion, for Steph and I fly early tomorrow... Steph for Washington DC, me for San Francisco, home.
In the end, we traveled 3,246 miles… through 8 states… in 6 days…   We landed in Ft Lauderdale at a Best Western, as Brian, the son drives up… I checked in, we all piled back in cars and went to a dive bar… the owners are former navy SARS swimmers… we had beer and bar food… we talked and laughed… Gina and John drove Steph and back to the hotel… into bed too late for flights too early tomorrow… at least mine is on my precious Virgin America…

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